


Foil and Foolhardiness

by Calacious



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Gen, Personality Swap, Small kine angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 00:12:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15424731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calacious/pseuds/Calacious
Summary: After an explosion caused them to, literally, butt heads, Danny and Steve aren't quite themselves. The doctor says it won't last. Lou hopes the doctor knows what he's talking about because he's starting to think that Tani has the right idea when she suggests knocking their heads together to restore order.





	Foil and Foolhardiness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [suerum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suerum/gifts).



> Birthday Gift Fic #5 for Sue. Happy birthday. I hope that this fits the bill for what you were looking for.

“Whoa, slow down, Danny, you trying to get us killed or what?” Steve asks. He eyes his partner warily, gripping the oh shit bar so hard that his knuckles are white, and silently praying that Danny will slow down before he gets them both killed.

Danny, shit eating grin firmly in place,  seems oblivious to Steve's very real, and rational fear that Danny will wrap the car around a pole on the next hairpin turn that he takes. There's a mad glint to Danny's eyes that does not bode well for them. 

When Tani, Junior and Lou had confronted Steve and Danny last week, claiming that neither of them was acting himself after their latest brush with death (an explosion at a warehouse that had given them both severe concussions), Steve had shrugged it off, told them that it was they who'd lost their minds, not him and Danny. The idea had been ludicrous, and he'd told them so, emphasizing his words with hand gestures.

Now, though, with Danny hurtling through town like they're in the Indy 500, rather than the busy streets of Honolulu, Steve is rethinking that protest. He remembers this -- speeding like a demon hell bent on dragging demons back down to Hades -- but not from the vantage point of sitting in the passenger's seat. It's a crazy thought, the idea that he and Danny had somehow swapped personalities when their clocks had been cleaned in that warehouse, but maybe the others hadn't been as off the mark as he'd thought.

“Danny, slow down,” Steve says. “I'm begging you. I'd like to live to see tomorrow. Hell, who am I kidding, I'd like to live to see the next minute.”

“Relax,” Danny says, oozing brazen confidence from every pore. “I've got everything under control. Don't get your panties in a bunch.”

“Don't get my panties in a bunch?” Steve throws his hands in the air and turns in his seat so that he can face his crazy partner. “You're driving like a madman and you're telling me not to get my panties in a bunch? That's real mature of you, Daredevil Detective.”

Danny raises an eyebrow at the nickname and smirks. He doesn't slow down, though. If anything he starts to pick up speed.

Steve rolls his eyes and gives Danny a ‘carry on’ gesture. He tries, but fails, to feign nonchalance and grimaces as Danny takes a turn, while swerving into the next lane, at breakneck speeds that send Steve careening into the passenger's door. His head cracks against the window, hard and it takes a full minute for his ears to stop ringing and the dizziness to pass.

“You're a menace,” Steve mutters as he rubs at what's sure to become a knot on his forehead. “If it would please Mario Andretti,” he gestures toward Danny. “I'd like to make it to the office in one piece.”

Danny snorts and Steve's blood boils at his partner's irreverence. No way is he anything like Danny. No way in hell does he dismiss others as flippantly as Danny does. The others are  _ wrong _ , he is not a reckless, hard-headed hothead. He's not a damn speed demon. No way, no how. Danny is the reckless one in this partnership. Always has been, always will be.

Steve releases the death-grip he's got on the oh shit bar when Danny skids to a screeching halt, tires burning on the asphalt, into their parking spot. He resists the urge that he's got to kiss the ground and ignores the trembling of his muscles, as well as the ridiculous ear to ear grin that Danny's sporting. It's clear that he enjoyed their drive into work this morning, regardless of Steve's discomfort.

Steve turns away from Danny, and moves out of Danny’s reach when his partner attempts to place a guiding hand on his lower back. He is not some swooning princess. 

* * *

“So, are they back to normal yet?” Tani asks, peering around Lou to look out the window of his office.

Lou purses his lips and shakes his head, nodding toward the pair in question. They're in the middle of the parking lot, engaged in a heated discussion. Danny's got his arms crossed over his chest, grimacing at whatever it is that Steve's laying into him about. There's an almost arrogant air to Danny, and Lou can just imagine how much it's grating on Steve. There's no doubt in his mind that, when Steve and Danny finally make it up to their offices, they'll all hear about Steve's grievances against his partner, in Technicolor. It's funny, but he misses Danny's rants coming from Danny. Coming from Steve, they're different.

Tani sighs and pats him on the arm. “The doctor said it might take a couple of weeks before they're back to normal.”

“They're still not themselves?” Junior asks, running a hand over his head when Lou shakes his head.

Junior stands on the other side of Lou, and all three of them watch Danny and Steve slowly make their way to the offices. Steve's hands are flying through the air with a dramatic flair and Danny's grinning. It's eerie.

“I'm not sure how much longer I can take this personality transplant. Maybe we should, you know --”

“Give them both a good knock to the head to jump start the change?” Tani finishes Lou’s thought.

“Yeah,” Lou says, frowning at the way that Danny's hand goes to Steve's lower back and the way that Steve continues talking with his hands, Danny nodding along, as they walk. “This is unnatural.”

“I know what you mean,” Junior says, shuddering and turning away from the window when Danny smirks at something Steve's said, head inclined. 

“So, we're a go for Operation Knock Heads Together?” Tani asks.

Sighing, Lou presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose. He turns away from the window now that Danny and Steve have entered the building and shakes his head at the eager look Tani is giving him.

“No, let's give it another week,” he says. “If they're not back in their right minds by then, we'll do something about it.”

Pouting Tani tugs a loose piece of hair behind her ear. “But that's what you said last week.”

Chuckling, Lou drapes an arm around her shoulder, leading her from the office. “I love your enthusiasm, kid, but I've got to confess, I'm a little concerned about your willingness to give your colleagues concussions.”

“It's all about the love,” Tani says. “We just have to knock some sense into them is all”

“I hear what you're saying, and all I have to say is that, if Danny and Steve aren't back to their normal selves next week, we'll try the tough love route,” Lou says, hoping that they won't have to wait a full week for things to return to normal. He just wants Danny to be Danny and Steve to be Steve, is that too much to ask?

He groans when Steve's, not Danny's, voice precedes the two up the stairs. It's not the same hearing Steve chew Danny out over something and watching Danny listen with half an ear, back immediately straightening to attention as soon as they enter the offices. 

_ It's going to be a long week _ , Lou thinks as he wistfully eyes the baseball bat propped up against the wall in Danny's office, reluctantly shaking himself from thoughts of putting Tani’s suggestion into action.

 

* * *

“I don't believe it,” Danny says. He's sitting in the passenger's seat of the car, trying to picture himself in Steve's place. He can't. 

“I mean, me, the one with the devil may care attitude?” Danny thumps himself in the chest and laughs. He shakes his head, lips pursed as looks at Steve out of the corner of his eye. 

He stifles a giggle and snorts as he tries to envision what Tani, Junior and Lou told them had happened during the past two weeks. Driving like a maniac, chasing down perps on foot and tackling them like a football pro, getting up early in the morning to get a swim and a two mile run in before work...

Sure, he's only got a vague memory of the weeks in question, and everything after the warehouse is a fuzzy blur of memory, but he couldn't have done half of the things that he'd been told he'd done. 

“I don't really remember what happened,” Steve says, and unless Danny's missing his mark, his friend's lying. He's being much more subdued than he normally is and it bothers Danny. 

“You do,” Danny says. He's never backed down from a confrontation before, he's not about to do so now.

Steve grips the steering wheel tighter and Danny watches the vein in his partner's neck jump. 

“No, I don't,” Steve says, gritting his teeth, and slowing the car when the person in front of him slams on the brakes. 

“Why didn't you get into the other lane?” Danny asks, frowning, certain now that Steve is not being truthful with him.

Steve shrugs. “Didn't feel like it.”

Danny turns in his seat so that he's facing Steve,,arms crossed over his chest. “Bullshit. Something's wrong.”

“Nothing's wrong, D,” Steve says, purposefully loosening his grip on the steering wheel and signaling before going into the next lane. 

“What the hell was that?” Danny asks, heart hammering in his chest. “What's up with you? First, you're driving like a granny, and now you're actually signalling your merges?”

Steve blushes and keeps his gaze locked on the road in front of him, jaw twitching. “It's called safe driving, Danny, I'd think you'd recognize it.”

Frowning, Danny settles against the passenger door so he can give Steve his full attention. “Are you saying that I drive like a grandmother?” 

Steve raises an eyebrow and shrugs. “You said it, not me, and I'd think that, instead of bellyaching, you'd be appreciative of how I'm driving?”

“Appreciative?” Danny sputters, gesturing toward the steering wheel. “I'd be appreciative if you got us to work on time. At this rate, Tani and Junior will be running Five-0 before we even pull into the parking lot.”

“Fine,” Steve says, letting out a frustrated burst of air and thumping the steering wheel with a fist. 

Danny raises an eyebrow and gestures for Steve to continue. “Fine, I do remember some...most of it. I remember sitting right where you are, wondering if I'd make it to work in one piece, chasing after you, watching you fly willy-nilly into danger as though--”

“As though my life didn't matter?” Danny asks, the familiar fear sitting in his gut like lead. 

How often has Steve put himself into harm's way? How many times has Danny been forced to watch his partner devalue his own life? Too many times to count. It makes him sick to think that, though it was out of his control, he'd put Steve through that same kind of helpless hell Steve often put him through.

He can't see himself behaving like that, can't imagine putting Steve through something like that, no matter that Steve puts him through that every single day. He shakes his head, tries his damnedest to remember what the others had told him he'd been like when he'd apparently adopted several of Steve's personality traits. Even after having seen evidence of some of it, caught in video on Tani’s phone, Danny still can't regain those memories. 

“I'm sorry, babe,” Danny says, patting Steve's hand and smiling when the white knuckled grip that Steve has on the wheel loosens and his partner steps on the gas, surging forward at an alarming pace. 

“I'm sorry, too,” Steve says, not taking his eyes off the road. 

There's a promise in those three words. Danny gives his partner a week, maybe two, before he breaks it, and silently forgives him for the future heart attacks and white hair Steve's going to give him. After all, Steve wouldn't be Steve if he was the cautious, level-headed one in their partnership. That was Danny's role to play, the perfect foil to Steve's lack of restraint and foolhardiness.


End file.
